Chapter III: The War of American Independence (4)

About 500 men, according to his dispatch, were detailed for the enterprise, but the number appears to have been larger.[141] It was a mixed body. There was a strong contingent of Germans, chiefly dismounted dragoons, ill suited for a cross-country march, and there were also picked marksmen from the British regiments, Canadians, provincials, and about 100 Indians. Out of compliment to Riedesel, the command was given to Colonel Baum, one of his officers, and in selecting German troops for the expedition, Burgoyne marked his appreciation of the good service which those regiments had rendered in following up the retreat of the Americans from Ticonderoga. The starting-point was the Batten Kill stream, running into the Hudson on its eastern side, ten miles lower down than Fort Edward. From this point to Bennington, by the route which Baum was finally instructed to take, was a distance of under thirty miles. The advance guard of Burgoyne’s army had already been moved down the Hudson to the Batten Kill, and, on the 14th of August, after Baum had started, they were thrown across the main river a little higher up under the command of General Fraser, and moved forward on the western bank as far as Saratoga, with the object of a further advance to Stillwater in the event of Baum’s expedition proving successful. The temporary bridge of rafts, however, by which they had crossed, being carried away, the troops were recalled and passed back in boats to the eastern side.

[Sidenote: Reinforcements sent under Colonel Breyman.]

[Sidenote: Baum’s force surprised and cut up.]

[Sidenote: Baum mortally wounded.]

[Sidenote: Breyman attacked and forced to retreat with heavy loss.]

Baum started from the Batten Kill early on the morning of the 13th of August, reached a place called Cambridge in the afternoon of that day, and on the following day arrived at Sancoick Mill near the confluence of the two branches of the Hoosick river, about four miles short of Bennington. There he found that the enemy in front of him were more numerous than had been anticipated, and he sent back to Burgoyne for reinforcements. Colonel Breyman, another German officer, was dispatched to his support with nearly 700 men: he started early on the morning of the 15th, but, owing to the difficulties of the route, and want of horses and forage, he made slow way, and was far short of Baum when evening came. On the 16th a number of men, as from the country side, came to where Baum was encamped: they were taken to be friends and Loyalists, and made their way within his lines. On a sudden, while beginning to move forward,[142] he found himself attacked on all sides: the component parts of his little force were separated from each other, and only the German soldiers held together, fighting bravely, as long as they had powder left, and then vainly endeavouring to cut their way out with their swords. The end was inevitable. The Indians dispersed in the woods: some of the British contingent with their commander, Captain Frazer, escaped, and so did a good many of the Canadians and provincials: but Baum was mortally wounded, and nearly all of his Brunswickers were killed or captured. On the afternoon of the same day, ignorant of what had happened, Breyman’s force was coming up and was in turn suddenly attacked. Again the men fought hard until their ammunition gave out, and eventually the main body made good their retreat, though they suffered heavy losses and had to leave their guns behind. John Stark was the leader of the Americans in these hard fought engagements.

[Sidenote: Consequences of the disaster.]

The immediate result of the fighting was the loss to the English of over 500 men and four guns,[143] and the total failure of the expedition. The ultimate effect was much more serious. Burgoyne’s small army was still further reduced: his hope of securing supplies and horses from the surrounding country was entirely gone; his expectation of Loyalist support, upon which the English had counted, was shown to be groundless; the chance of facilitating the main operations by a successful diversion was lost; the enemy were put in good heart; and such fickle allies as the Indians were further alienated. The enterprise was subsequently made the subject of much hostile criticism, and blame was variously assigned. Burgoyne considered that the failure was due to the fact that Baum had not taken up a position in the open in accordance with instructions, to the chance co-operation of bodies of the enemy who happened to be near, and to undue slowness on Breyman’s part. The truth seems to have been that the expedition was not badly conceived, but imperfect knowledge of the country and faulty intelligence as to the enemy’s strength and movements in this, as in many similar cases, procured disaster.[144]

[Sidenote: Burgoyne’s views on the situation.]

Burgoyne’s anxiety as to the future was expressed in a private letter which he wrote to Germain on the 20th of August, accompanying the public dispatch of the same date in which he reported the failure of the Bennington expedition. He wrote that, in spite of St. Leger’s victory, Fort Stanwix was holding out obstinately, that no operation had been taken in his favour, and that the American forces under Gates in his front had been strengthened and now outnumbered his own. Only one letter had reached him from Sir William Howe. That letter was written from New York on the 17th of July, and in it Howe stated that he had heard of Burgoyne’s victory at Ticonderoga, adding ‘My intention is for Pennsylvania, where I expect to meet Washington, but if he goes to the northward contrary to my expectations and you can keep him at bay, be assured I shall soon be after him to relieve you’. As has been already stated, no instructions from Germain had reached Howe on the subject of Burgoyne and his army, though he had received from Carleton a copy of Germain’s dispatch of March 26th, 1777, in which the programme of the expedition from Canada had been detailed. Situated as Burgoyne was, knowing that further advance would entail cutting of his communications with Ticonderoga, it is no wonder that in his letter to Germain he wrote that, had he latitude in his orders, he would have thought it his duty to remain where he was encamped opposite Saratoga, or further back at Fort Edward where his communications would be secure, until events in other quarters facilitated a forward movement. But his instructions were ‘to force a junction with Sir William Howe’, or at any rate to make his way to Albany; and, as he sadly wrote, when the catastrophe was over and he was a prisoner, ‘The expedition I commanded was evidently meant at first to be hazarded. Circumstances might require it should be devoted.’ A very strong man in his position would have taken the responsibility of temporary retreat, but, good soldier as he was, he was not a commanding character. He knew the power which Germain possessed of making and unmaking men, he had before his eyes the harsh treatment of Carleton, because Carleton had exercised wise discretion in falling back from Crown Point in the preceding autumn. His instructions freed him from responsibility if he went forward, the blame would be his alone if he fell back. The evil influence of Germain blighted loyal commanders and soldiers in America. George the Third’s system was working itself out, and the British Empire was being sacrificed to the ‘King’s Friends’.

[Sidenote: Burgoyne’s communications attacked by the colonists.]

The first necessity was to bring up supplies from Lake George for the further advance, enough to last for twenty-five to thirty days, inasmuch as crossing the Hudson and moving south meant the loss of communication with Canada. This Burgoyne anticipated, and his apprehensions proved true. Shortly after he crossed the Hudson and began his southward march, a force of colonists, assembling at Skenesborough, on the 18th of September attacked the British garrisons at Ticonderoga and Mount Independence. They were repulsed after four or five days’ fighting, but not until they had taken outposts at the saw-mills, Mount Hope, and Sugar Hill, captured three companies of British soldiers, and taken or destroyed a large amount of stores and a number of boats. Retreating up Lake George, they attacked a detachment on an island in the lake named Diamond Island and, though they were again beaten off, their operations served the purpose of making Burgoyne’s communications utterly insecure.[145]

[Sidenote: The Americans under Gates take up a position at Bemus’ Heights.]

From the 16th of August to the 13th of September, the British army remained on the eastern bank of the Hudson over against Saratoga. The reinforcements which joined them apparently amounted to only 300 men. News seems to have reached the army, before they moved onward, that St. Leger was retreating from Fort Stanwix, so that hope of co-operation in the direction of the Mohawk river was at an end; on the other hand there was a possibility that St. Leger’s men, brought down the St. Lawrence and up Lake Champlain and Lake George, might be able to join the main force. It is not clear what was the exact number of men who crossed the Hudson under Burgoyne’s command. According to the evidence given at the subsequent Parliamentary inquiry, the regulars, British and German, were rather short of 5,000 men, but, if the Canadians and provincials were included, the total fighting force must have reached 6,000. From Fort Edward to Albany is a distance of over forty miles and to the confluence of the Mohawk river about thirty-four; but Burgoyne was already encamped ten miles south of Fort Edward and the Americans, who had previously fallen back to what was known as the Half Moon at the mouth of the Mohawk river, after the British defeat at Sancoick Mills and the relief of Fort Stanwix, moved up the Hudson a little way above Stillwater, and took up a strong position on high ground called Bemus’ Heights, where they were within ten miles’ distance of the point where Burgoyne crossed the river.

General Philip Schuyler had been in command of the Congress troops on the side of Canada. He was a man of the highest character, and apparently a perfectly competent soldier, whose Fabian tactics were beginning to achieve success when he was superseded. After the abandonment of Ticonderoga and the rout which followed, the tide of public opinion set against him--without any adequate reason. The New Englanders were jealous of a general from New York state; and, under a resolution of Congress, Schuyler was in the middle of August replaced by Horatio Gates, a godson of Horace Walpole, who, like Richard Montgomery, had been born in the United Kingdom and had served in the British army, having been badly wounded in Braddock’s disastrous expedition. Gates, who in the previous year had commanded the garrison at Ticonderoga, was a self-seeking, intriguing man. His subsequent disloyalty to Washington, and his defeat at Camden, clouded what reputation he gained through receiving Burgoyne’s surrender. When he took over the command of the troops opposing Burgoyne, his task was comparatively easy. He had good men with him, among others Arnold, who had returned from the march to relieve Fort Stanwix and between whom and Gates there was no love lost, he had also Daniel Morgan and Lincoln; while the army under their command had received an accession to its numbers in consequence of Howe having moved off from New York to Philadelphia. The Americans now largely outnumbered Burgoyne’s force, and behind them, lower down the Hudson, the Highlands were held against a possible movement on the part of Clinton, who commanded the troops left behind at New York when Howe sailed for Chesapeake Bay.

[Sidenote: Burgoyne crosses the Hudson and advances South.]

About six miles below Fort Edward, between that fort and the Batten Kill stream, at a place named Fort Miller, there were rapids in the Hudson, where a portage was necessary for the boats descending the river; below it navigation was unimpeded, and the stores and baggage of the army could be carried by water. A bridge of boats was thrown over the river about half a mile above the Batten Kill, and by this bridge the whole army crossed the Hudson on the 13th and 14th of September from the eastern to the western shore. Burgoyne was subsequently criticized for crossing, but the criticism had no sound foundation. If he was to reach Albany at all, he must cross the river at some point or other, and the further he went down stream the more difficult the crossing was likely to be. Moreover the high road ran along the western bank, while on the opposite shore swamp and mountain would have made it impossible at certain points to march close to the river bank, and the army would therefore have been separated from the boats. On the western side of the Hudson the country, through which the troops advanced, was wooded and broken, the road and bridges over the intervening creeks had been cut up by the enemy, and progress was slow; but by the 17th less than four miles intervened between the two armies. On the 18th there was skirmishing, while the British force were repairing bridges and cutting a way through the bush: and on the 19th a general action took place.

[Sidenote: Action of September 19.]

The British army advanced in three divisions. On the right under General Fraser were the 24th Regiment, the light infantry and the grenadiers, accompanied by Indian and Canadian scouts and supported by some German troops under Colonel Breyman. The centre column, entirely composed of British regiments, was under Burgoyne’s immediate command. The left wing was in charge of Riedesel, and included the main body of the German soldiers with most of the artillery. The left marched along the high road on the lowland following the course of the river, and one British regiment, the 47th, on the bank of the river, guarded the boats which carried the stores. There was a deep ravine between the armies, and Fraser’s division made a wide circuit to the right in order to keep on the high ground. The movement was successfully carried out, and Fraser established himself in a strong position while the centre column moved forward, crossed the ravine, formed on the other side, and bearing to the right became engaged with the enemy. The centre of the battle was a clearing in the woods, where there was a homestead known as Freeman’s farm; from this farm the Americans had molested Burgoyne’s advance, and being dislodged by artillery fell back into the cover behind. Their intention had been to turn the British right, but, finding that Fraser was too strongly posted, they counter-marched and placed their full force in front of the centre column. Here the battle was fought, and for four hours, from three o’clock in the afternoon till seven, the brunt of the fighting fell upon three British regiments, the 20th, the 21st and the 62nd, a fourth regiment, the 9th, being held in reserve. Some help came from Fraser’s men, but the safety of the army depended upon his holding his ground on the right, so that he could not bring up his whole division in support of the centre. Constantly reinforced and covered by the woods, the Americans, led by Arnold, who commanded the left wing of their army, pressed hard upon the fighting regiments, until, late in the day, Riedesel, having pushed forward his troops along the line of the river, wheeled them sharp to the right and struck in on the flank. This decided the battle, and, as darkness fell, the forces of the Congress drew off, leaving Burgoyne’s army in possession of the field.

[Sidenote: Result of the fight--Burgoyne’s losses.]

[Sidenote: Message from Clinton.]

[Sidenote: Scarcity of provisions.]

[Sidenote: Further movement necessary.]

The fight was won, but, as Burgoyne wrote in his subsequent dispatch, ‘it was soon found that no fruits, honour excepted, were attained by the preceding victory.’ He had lost about 500 men, the 62nd Regiment having especially suffered, and though the losses of the Americans had possibly been heavier, reinforcements were available for them and their position grew stronger and stronger. On the day after the battle the English moved forward slightly until they were almost within cannon shot of their enemies, at a distance of about half a mile, and in turn threw up entrenchments. On the 21st Burgoyne received a message from Clinton, dated the 12th, to the effect that in about ten days’ time he intended to move up the Hudson and attack the American forts in the Highlands. Burgoyne sent back word, urging the necessity of some such operation in his favour in order to divert part of the American force which was barring his way, and he stated that he would hold his ground if possible, till the 12th of October. The days went on: provisions began to run short: on the 3rd of October it was found necessary to reduce the soldiers’ rations: and, some movement having become inevitable, Burgoyne determined on the 7th to make a reconnaissance on the enemy’s left--the side furthest removed from the Hudson, in order definitely to ascertain whether there was a possibility of either forcing a passage or at any rate so far dislodging the enemy as to enable the British army to retreat unmolested. At the same time it was hoped that under cover of the reconnaissance, forage, badly needed, might be collected for the horses.

[Sidenote: Action of October 7.]

[Sidenote: The English heavily defeated and their corps partly taken.]

Only about 1,500 regular soldiers were available for the movement, with ten pieces of artillery: and, small as the number was, hardly enough men were left behind to guard the lines. The detachment advanced, and was formed within about three-quarters of a mile of the enemy’s left, waiting for some of the marksmen with Canadians and Indians to make a detour through the woods still further to the right and take the enemy in the rear. On a sudden the Americans in superior numbers made a determined attack on the left wing of the little force, where were the grenadiers and a German regiment. At the same time the flank of the right wing was in imminent danger of being turned: and, while the troops on this side were being drawn back and reformed in order to secure the retreat, the Americans redoubled the attack on the grenadiers and the Germans. The German regiment gave way, the grenadiers were overpowered, and complete disaster was averted only by the stanch fighting of the gunners and by bringing up supports from the right under General Fraser who, in carrying out the movement, was mortally wounded. Hard pressed and heavily defeated, leaving six guns behind them, the force regained their lines, but the Americans, who fought with conspicuous boldness and resolution, followed on, broke through the entrenchments, and eventually stormed the post in the rear of the right which was held by Colonel Breyman and the scanty German reserve. The position was taken, but night came on, Arnold who had led the fight was wounded, and the Congress troops drew off, content with the success which they had already gained. Under cover of the same night Burgoyne fell back, and took up a new position on high ground in the rear of his former camp.[146]

[Sidenote: Burgoyne’s fatal delay.]

Up to this point in the campaign General Burgoyne may have made mistakes, but at any rate he had not shown himself to be either irresolute or incompetent. He had been sent to achieve the impossible: he had loyally attempted to carry out his instructions, even when opposed to his own views; and, bearing in mind the small number of his troops and the difficulty of securing provisions and supplies, it is not easy to find ground for criticism either in his delays or in his fighting. But now his duty was clear, to retreat at once on Fort Edward and save the remnant of the expedition. Every hour was of importance, for every hour numbers greater than his own, emboldened by success, were gathering round him and threatening his retreat. The position in which he was placed after the battle of the 7th of October was no doubt one of great difficulty, but at any rate there was only one practical course to be taken, and a firm resolute man, intent only on the public good, would have taken it at once. Burgoyne acted otherwise, his movements were leisurely and almost invited the final catastrophe. Reading the account of what took place, and his own defence, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the personal element was strong in him, that there was a theatrical strain in his character, and that he was concerned with public opinion and effect, instead of simply gripping the nettle in manful fashion, neglecting no chance, and fighting out hard to the last.[147]

[Sidenote: Beginning of the retreat.]

[Sidenote: Loss of the boats.]

[Sidenote: Burgoyne’s irresolution.]

[Sidenote: Negotiations with Gates.]

[Sidenote: The final surrender.]

All day on the 8th the army remained in their new position offering battle, and burying General Fraser with the honour due to a brave and much loved man, while parties of the enemy crossed the Hudson, and fired on the British camp from the opposite side. A day was lost, the Americans were beginning to turn the right or inland flank, and on the night of the 8th the retreat began, the wounded being left behind in hospital. The weather was bad, the baggage encumbered the army, it was necessary to guard the boats on the river, yet the distance to be traversed to Fort Edward was less than twenty miles and a hurried retreat would have saved the army. When the morning of the 9th came, however, Burgoyne called a halt for his wearied men, and through the greater part of that day no further movement was made. Late in the afternoon the march was resumed, when darkness came, the troops passed through Saratoga and crossed the Fish Kill stream, and on the morning of the 10th the artillery was brought over. Meanwhile the Americans had pressed forward up the eastern bank of the Hudson, and, when the British troops neared Saratoga, they found a party of the enemy already in front of them on the western side, who were beginning to throw up entrenchments, but withdrew as the British came up, leaving the road still open for retreat. On the 10th some troops were sent forward by Burgoyne to hold the ford opposite Fort Edward and to cover the work of repairing the bridges, but were recalled when the main American force attacked the rear of the British army on the line of the Fish Kill. The boats could now no longer be adequately defended against the American guns, the provisions were taken out of them, and they drifted into the enemy’s hands. Through the next three days, the 11th, the 12th and the 13th, Burgoyne remained inactive. Councils of war were held, and it was contemplated to make a night march and try to cross the river near Fort Edward, but the procrastination and indecision of the general put off the movement until it was too late. ‘The army’, wrote Burgoyne in his subsequent dispatch, ‘took the best position possible and fortified, waiting till the 13th at night, in the anxious hope of succours from our friends or, the next desirable expectation, an attack from our enemy’. On the 14th negotiations were begun with General Gates, they continued for three days, terms were signed late on the 16th, and on the 17th the English surrendered to the American general and his army, kindly and generous in the hour of victory as they had been strong and stubborn in fighting.

[Sidenote: Clinton’s movements.]

The delay in the conclusion of the matter was due at first to the wording of the terms which Gates dictated, and subsequently to intelligence which reached both armies of Clinton’s movements up the Hudson. On the 4th of October Clinton started up the river from New York with some ships of war, carrying 3,000 men, and on the 6th stormed two American forts which barred the passage of the river about fifty miles from the sea; some of the ships went higher up stream but did not come within many miles of Albany; and, brilliant as the operation was, it could not in any case have affected the main issue and only served, with the help of rumour and report, to make Gates anxious to conclude the negotiations of surrender and Burgoyne for a few hours reluctant to sign the terms. At length the inevitable was accepted and the remains of the English army, under 5,000 in number, of whom about 3,500 were fighting men, were taken as prisoners of war to Albany and Boston.[148]

[Sidenote: Causes of the disaster.]

[Sidenote: Carleton on Lord George Germain.]

[Sidenote: Character of Burgoyne.]

The ultimate cause of the disaster was Lord George Germain. Here is Carleton’s judgement upon the matter, contained in a letter to Burgoyne dated the following 12th of November, ‘This unfortunate event, it is to be hoped, will in future prevent ministers from pretending to direct operations of war, in a country at 3,000 miles distance, of which they have so little knowledge as not to be able to distinguish between good, bad, or interested advices, or to give positive orders in matters which from their nature are ever upon the change.’ The more immediate cause was the character of Burgoyne. His condemnation is written in his own dispatch.

‘The bulk of the enemy’s army was hourly joined by new corps of militia and volunteers, and their numbers together amounted to upwards of 16,000 men. After the execution of the treaty General Gates drew together the force that had surrounded my position, and I had the consolation to have as many witnesses as I had men under my command, of its amounting to the numbers mentioned above.’

Why had the 16,000 men gathered round him? Because he had given them time to do so, because in the hour of need his thought was rather of saving his own reputation than of saving the force under his command. Would Wolfe, weakly and suffering, have waited helplessly for something to turn up, looking for co-operation from Amherst in the far distance, as Burgoyne looked for it from Clinton? Would he have found consolation in allowing the enemy’s numbers to grow and counting up how far superior they were to his own? Would he have been at pains to make the story plausible and dramatic, so that he might hold up his head thereafter in London circles and retain the favour of those who were in high places? It was not English to court surrender, and to cast about for excuse for surrender. Had Chatham been in Germain’s place, no such foolhardy expedition would have been ordered cut and dried from England. Had Wolfe been in Burgoyne’s, if success was possible he would have achieved it, if it was impossible he would have redeemed failure or died. Military skill, daring, manhood, self-reliance, leadership of soldiers and of men, were the qualities which less than twenty years before had shone out in dark days round Quebec; the same qualities seemed dead or numbed, when Burgoyne bade his men lay down their arms by the banks of the Hudson river.

[Sidenote: Consequences of the disaster.]

[Sidenote: The French intervene in the war.]

The story of this ill-fated expedition has been told at some length because it is part and parcel of the history of Canada. The scene of the later years of the War of Independence was the Atlantic seaboard; and Canada, except on her western borders, though threatened, was unmolested. The surrender of Burgoyne’s army by no means finished the fighting, the English were still to win barren successes before the final catastrophe at Yorktown; but after Saratoga the war entered upon a wholly new stage. The surrender in itself was serious enough. No colonists had in modern history achieved so great a triumph, no such disaster had ever clouded British arms in the story of her colonization. The Preface of the _Annual Register_ for 1777 refers to the ‘awful aspect of the times’, awful indeed to a country whose best men had no faith in her cause. But the great practical result which followed on the reverse of Saratoga, the result which eventually decided the war, was that the French now joined hands with the Americans, and the latter thereby secured the help of a fleet, strong enough, when the Spaniards at a later date also entered the ranks of England’s enemies, to compete with the British navy on the western seas.

[Sidenote: The French alliance with the Americans tended to protect Canada from invasion.]

While, however, the intervention of France greatly increased the difficulties with which Great Britain had to contend at this critical time of her history, for the moment it made the war more popular in England, inasmuch as Englishmen were now called upon to fight against their old rivals and not merely against their kinsfolk. In another respect too it was of distinct advantage to the British Empire, in that it brought to Canada immunity from invasion. The American colonists welcomed French aid in securing their independence, but they had no mind to restore Canada to France, and they looked with suspicion on any proposal or utterance which might seem to point in that direction. Though the French in their treaty with the United States disclaimed any intention of national aggrandizement in America,[149] Admiral D’Estaing, in October, 1778, a few months after his arrival in American waters, issued a proclamation to the Canadians, appealing to their French nationality; and Lafayette proposed a scheme for an invasion of Canada which Congress accepted but Washington set aside. There was sufficient uneasiness in American minds with regard to French designs to restrict French co-operation in the main to the Atlantic side; and, though the Canadians were excited by their countrymen’s appeal, they did not rise in arms themselves, nor did the Americans attempt to repeat the movement by which Montgomery had over-run the country up to the walls of Quebec.

[Sidenote: Precautions taken in Canada against invasion.]

It would not indeed have been easy for them to do so, for Carleton and his successor Haldimand, though badly in need of reinforcements, were yet better prepared and had more men at their command than when the war first broke out. Immediately after Burgoyne’s capitulation Ticonderoga and Crown Point were abandoned, and the troops were withdrawn to the northern end of Lake Champlain. A year later Haldimand directed the whole country round the lake to be cleared of settlement and cultivation, as a safeguard against American invasion. At various points, where such invasion might take place, he established posts, on an island at the opening of Lake Ontario, which was named Carleton Island; at the Isle aux Noix at the head of the Richelieu river, and at Sorel at its mouth: on the river St. Francis which joins the St. Lawrence below Sorel, flowing from the direction of Vermont: and on the Chaudière river over against Quebec, lest Arnold’s inroad by the line of that river should be repeated.

[Sidenote: Border War.]

Nor was this all. As in Count Frontenac’s time, and with much the same ruthlessness as in those earlier days, Canada was defended by counter attacks upon the border settlements of the revolting colonies, Loyalists and Indians dealing the blows and bearing the penalties. In May and June of 1778, Brant harried the New York frontier and burnt the town of Springfield; in July, in order, it was said, to counteract American designs against Niagara, Colonel John Butler, with a force of Rangers and Indians, carried war far into the enemy’s country and uprooted the settlements at Wyoming, on the eastern branch of the Susquehanna river within the borders of Pennsylvania. Fact and fiction have combined to keep alive the memories of the massacre at Wyoming; and, together with the even more terrible tragedy of Cherry Valley which followed, it stands to the discredit of England in the story of these most barbarous border wars.[150] In September the Mohawk leader burnt to the ground the houses and barns at the German Flatts, though the settlers had been warned in time to take refuge in Fort Dayton. In November Brant joined forces with Walter Butler, son of the raider of Wyoming; and together they carried death and desolation into the Cherry Valley settlement in Tryon county. In the following year the Americans took a terrible revenge for these doings, and a strong force under General John Sullivan turned the country of the Six Nation Indians into a wilderness. ‘General Sullivan,’ wrote Washington to Lafayette, ‘has completed the entire destruction of the country of the Six Nations, driven all the inhabitants, men, women, and children out of it’.

[Sidenote: George Rogers Clark in the West.]

Further west, in 1778 and 1779, the Illinois region and the settlements on the middle Mississippi fell into American hands, never to be regained, the leader of the backwoodsmen in this quarter being George Rogers Clark, a young Virginian, one of the pioneers of settlement in Kentucky, a most able leader and a hard determined man. In July, 1778, Clark surprised and took the fort and settlement of Kaskaskia standing on the river of that name a little above its junction with the Mississippi, and immediately afterwards he received the submission of the post at Vincennes on the Wabash river. A few months later, in December, 1778, Vincennes was re-occupied by Hamilton, Lieutenant-Governor of Detroit, with a handful of men. Before the following February ended, Hamilton was in turn attacked and overpowered by Clark who carried out a daring winter march; and, being forced to surrender at discretion, the English commander was, according to English accounts, treated through long months of imprisonment with unmerited harshness. The truth was that, as the war went on, bitterness increased, and when, as in the West and on the border the combatants were backwoodsmen, Rangers and Indians, the fighting became a series of ruthless reprisals.

[Sidenote: Later raids from Canada.]

Later again, in 1780 and 1781, parties sent out from Canada retraced the routes taken by Burgoyne and St. Leger, harried the country at the southern end of Lakes George and Champlain, and laid waste the settlements in the Mohawk valley. In one, commanded by Major Carleton, brother of the late governor of Canada, Fort Anne and Fort George were taken with their garrisons; in another, on the line of the Mohawk, Major Ross, advancing from Oswego, inflicted heavy loss on the Americans. In all these expeditions on either side there was the same object, to prevent invasion by counter invasion, to destroy stores, and to terrorize the adherents of the enemy; but none of them, except the exploits of Clark, contributed materially to the issue of the war.

[Sidenote: Fighting on the Penobscot.]

On or near the Atlantic coast-line of Canada, in 1779, fighting took place which might well have had lasting results. An expedition was sent in that year from Halifax to the Penobscot river, commanded by Maclean, who had done good service under Carleton at the time of the American invasion. In June he established himself at Castine at the mouth of the Penobscot; and, inasmuch as the place was then within the borders of Massachusetts, he was towards the end of July attacked by a small squadron and a force of militia sent from and paid for by that state. For between two or three weeks the Americans besieged the British post until, towards the end of the second week in August, British ships under Sir George Collier appeared on the scene, and all the American vessels were taken or destroyed. Maclean’s expedition was repeated with equal success by Sir John Sherbrooke in the war of 1812, but neither enterprise produced the permanent result of making the Penobscot river, as it should have been, the boundary between Canada and the United States.

[Sidenote: Carleton succeeded by Haldimand.]

It has been seen that in June, 1777, Carleton sent in his resignation of the governorship of Canada. Burgoyne wrote privately to Germain at the end of July, before he started on his expedition, to decline the appointment in case it should be offered to him; and in August, 1777, General Haldimand, who was then at home in Switzerland, was nominated as Carleton’s successor. He was ordered to go out as soon as possible in a ship which, as Germain wrote to Carleton on the 19th of October, was to bring the latter home, but did not leave England till the end of April or beginning of May following, arriving at Quebec at the end of June, 1778. Carleton then immediately returned to England, and was received with honour by the King to the disgust of Lord George Germain.

[Sidenote: Haldimand’s government.]

General Haldimand, Sir Frederick Haldimand as he afterwards was, governed Canada till the end of 1784, and he governed it, in thankless times, strongly and well. In the year 1778 he was sixty years of age, having been born in 1718. Like his great friend Henry Bouquet, he was a Swiss. His birthplace was Yverdon at the south-western end of the lake of Neuchâtel, and there he died in 1791, the year in which the Canada Act was passed. There is a tablet to his memory in Henry VII’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey. His career was that of a soldier of fortune. With Bouquet, he served the Stadtholder of the Netherlands in a regiment of Swiss Guards; and in 1754[151] the two officers entered the British service as lieutenant-colonels of the newly-raised regiment of Royal Americans. He fought under Abercromby at Ticonderoga, and afterwards served under Amherst; and in 1759, while rebuilding the fort at Oswego, he beat off a force of Canadians and Indians commanded by St. Luc de la Corne, who in later days was a member of his Legislative Council at Quebec. After the capitulation of Montreal, being a French-speaking officer, he was selected by Amherst to take possession of the city. He subsequently acted as governor of Three Rivers, and when to his great grief Bouquet died at Pensacola in 1765, Haldimand, in 1767, succeeded his friend in the command in Florida. In 1773 he went to New York to act for General Gage while the latter was on leave in England. In 1775 he was brought back to England, and in 1778 he went out to govern Canada.

Haldimand was a man of the Carleton type; and, before he left London to take up his appointment, he wrote to Germain to the effect that he should be given full discretion in military matters, and, as civil governor, have the nomination to all appointments. Like Carleton, he was attacked by the partisans of Congress in Canada as a military despot, the enemy of civil liberties, the best known case against him being that of Du Calvet,[152] a French Protestant, who was in 1780 arrested and imprisoned for encouraging and abetting treason, and who subsequently published his case against the governor in London. That Du Calvet was a traitor there seems to have been no doubt, but his charges against the governor coloured the view which was commonly taken in after years of Haldimand’s administration. None the less, whatever may have been the technical merits of this and other individual cases, it is beyond question that, at a time when England was badly served both at home and abroad, in the most critical years, and in Canada where the position was most difficult, she was conspicuously well served by Carleton and Haldimand. Haldimand governed a community, in which the minority, as in Carleton’s time, was largely disaffected, and the loyalty of the majority was undermined by French appeals. From day to day the danger of attack at this point or at that was imminent, while there was constant risk that the supplies which came over the sea would be intercepted by French ships or American privateers. In England Haldimand’s master was still the same self-willed, half-informed minister Germain. In Canada there were few that he could trust. Yet solitary in public as in private life--for he had no wife or child--he held the reins of government with a firm and an honest hand, a good servant of England though of foreign birth. If Canada at the present day be compared with the province of Quebec which the Peace of 1763 gave into British keeping, the three main elements in the evolution of the great Dominion will be found to have been British immigration, canals, and railways. Railways, opening the North-West and linking the two oceans, date from long after Haldimand’s time; but he was governor when the first steps were taken to improve the waterways of Canada, and he watched over the incoming of the United Empire Loyalists.

[Sidenote: The Vermont negotiations.]

Not the least of Haldimand’s difficulties was that he had to negotiate peace and wage war at the same time, for, while directing or controlling border raids at other points on the Canadian frontier, he had on his hands, from 1779 onwards, troublesome and in the end abortive negotiations with the settlers in the present state of Vermont. Of the character of these settlers he seems to have had but a poor opinion, their lawless antecedents no doubt not being to his mind. Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys had not been animated by American patriotism alone when at the beginning of the war they took Ticonderoga. They had in their minds to put themselves in evidence and to vindicate their claim to be free of New York. While the war went on, and after it ended, their determination to be an independent state was as strong as ever; and their negotiations with Canada were an intimation to Congress that the price of their continued adhesion to the continental cause must be recognition of their local independence. The policy had the immediate merit of giving them a respite from Canadian raids, and it left open a choice of future issues. The Vermont men knew the value or the weakness of their geographical position as regards Canada. It was patent then as it was in the later war of 1812. In a private letter to Lord North, dated the 24th of October, 1783,[153] Haldimand wrote, ‘Since the provisional treaty has been made public, several persons of influence in the state of Vermont have been here at different times, they all agree in describing these people as very averse to Congress and its measures.... They made no scruple of telling me that Vermont must either be annexed to Canada or become mistress of it, as it is the only channel by which the produce of their country can be conveyed to a market, but they assured me that they rather wished the former.’ The Vermont settlers were, in short, like many states and many individuals before and since, on the fence; but in the end they were neither annexed to Canada nor did they become mistress of her, for in 1791 Vermont became a state of the American Union, and Canada worked out her own salvation.

Haldimand’s dispatches might have been written by Carleton. There is the same point of view, almost the same turn of expression. On the 25th of October, 1780, in a long dispatch to Lord George Germain, giving an account of the general conditions of men and things in Canada, he wrote, ‘As it is my duty, it has been my business to inform myself of the state of the country, and I coincide with the majority of the Legislative Council in considering the Canadians as the people of the country, and think that in making laws and regulations for the administration of these laws, regard is to be paid to the sentiments and manner of thinking of 60,000 rather than of 2,000--three-fourths of whom are traders and cannot with propriety be considered as residents of the province. In this point of view the Quebec Act was both just and politic, though unfortunately for the British Empire it was enacted ten years too late. It requires but little penetration to discover that, had the system of government solicited by the old subjects been adopted in Canada, this colony would in 1775 have become one of the United States of America.’[154] Three years later, when the war was over, in his letter to Lord North referred to above, he wrote ‘This province can only be preserved by bringing back the Canadians to a regular subordination, and by rendering them useful as a well-disciplined militia. In order to effectuate this, the authority of government must be strengthened and not diminished’.[155]

Like Carleton and like Murray, Haldimand had it at heart to provide the people of Canada with an upright and kindly administration. Among the various grievances, real or alleged, which were ventilated from time to time, one of the most substantial, so far as the French Canadians were concerned, was the excessive amount which was exacted from them by officials and lawyers in the form of fees of office. In 1780 Haldimand assented to an ordinance regulating the fees for two years, at the expiration of which time he hoped that the Legislature would, from the experience gained in the meantime, be able to draw up ‘a more perfect list of fees, more permanent and less burthensome to the people’ for, he wrote, ‘the fees in general are by far too high and more than the people of this province can bear.’[156] A favourite complaint of the British minority, who had as little to complain of as they were loud and persistent in complaining, was that there was no statutory provision for the right of Habeas Corpus, which was supposed to have been abolished by the Quebec Act. When peace was restored and the step could safely be taken, Haldimand met this grievance by passing, in 1784, an ordinance ‘for securing the liberty of the subject and for the prevention of imprisonments out of this province’.[157] When reporting the passing of the fees ordinance Haldimand wrote, ‘Sir Guy Carleton had in the sessions 1775 proposed to regulate the fees of office, and had that business very much at heart. Committees were appointed for that salutory purpose and, though many obstacles were thrown in the way, great progress was made. The ordinance was lost for that time by Sir Guy Carleton’s putting an end to the session in consequence of motions made in council by Mr. Livius and others’.[158] He himself suffered from similar obstruction; his dispatch goes on to refer to members of his council, ‘who, however willing they may be to circumscribe the King’s authority in measures of general utility to his service and the welfare of his people, are for carrying on to the greatest height his prerogative to grant Letters Patent for the emolument of individuals though to the oppression of the people’. As the outcome of the Livius case, two additional Royal Instructions had been issued to Haldimand, dated the 29th of March, 1779. The first prohibited him from interpreting the words in the general instructions ‘It is our further Will and Pleasure that any five of the said council shall constitute a board of council for transacting all business in which their advice and consent may be requisite, acts of legislation only excepted’, as Carleton had interpreted them, namely, as authorizing the governor to select five particular members of the Legislative Council to form an Executive or Privy Council; and it instructed him to communicate this decision to the council. The second instructed him to communicate to the council ‘such and so many of our said instructions, wherein their advice and consent are made requisite, with such others from time to time as you shall judge for our service to be imparted to them’.[159] Haldimand did not at once communicate these additional instructions to his council. He thought that at the time it was not for the public interest to do so, and he wrote to Germain to that effect, but only brought upon himself a severe reprimand alike from Germain and from the Board of Trade. Equally he thought it inadvisable, under existing circumstances, to communicate to his council certain clauses in the general instructions, in which the Home Government practically invited the Quebec Legislative Council to modify the Quebec Act, recommending the introduction to some extent of English civil law and also statutory provision for Habeas Corpus. Like Carleton he saw things face to face, as a soldier not as a constitutional lawyer, and he gave advice according to existing conditions, which were those of war and not of peace. These two governors may have been technically wrong in this point or in that, but they had the root of the matter in them, they governed with a single eye, a firm hand, and with most generous and humane intent. ‘Party spirit,’ Haldimand wrote to Germain, ‘is the enemy of every private as well as public virtue. Since my arrival in the province I have steered clear of all parties and have taken great care not to enter into the resentments of my predecessor or his friends, but this present occasion obliges me to declare to your lordship that in general Mr. Livius’ conduct has not impressed people with a favourable idea of his moderation.’[160] There was no party spirit about Carleton, nor yet about Haldimand. In a bad time, when partisanship was rife, they stood for the good name of England, and for the substance of sound and honest administration.

[Sidenote: Clinton succeeds Howe at Philadelphia and retreats to New York.]

At the same time that Haldimand relieved Carleton, Sir Henry Clinton took over from Howe the command of the army at Philadelphia. He arrived there at the beginning of May, 1778, and at the end of the month Howe left for England. The abandonment of Philadelphia had been ordered from home, in view of the new complications produced by the intervention of France in the war. All the available ships carried off to New York, stores, baggage, and numbers of Loyalists, while Clinton retreated with his army overland through New Jersey. On the 18th of June he left Philadelphia, which was immediately re-occupied by the Americans, and for a fortnight, closely followed by Washington, he slowly made his way in the heat of the summer through the enemy’s country. On the 28th of June in what is known as the battle of Monmouth, near Freehold Court House, he fought a rearguard action with Lee, who commanded the advance of Washington’s army: and, thereby covering his retreat, reached Sandy Hook, and on the 5th of July carried over his troops to New York.

[Sidenote: The French fleet.]

D’Estaing and a French squadron had now appeared on the scene, threatened New York, and in co-operation with the American general Sullivan attacked the English in Rhode Island. Bad weather, the skill and seamanship of Admiral Howe, and the preparations made by the English commander on shore, rendered the expedition abortive, and the summer closed without decisive success on either side.

[Sidenote: Operations in the south.]

[Sidenote: Savannah taken by the English.]

[Sidenote: Clinton takes command in the south.]

Later in the year, an expedition under Colonel Campbell, was dispatched to the south, and landing at the end of December near Savannah, the capital of the colony of Georgia, by a skilful movement took the town and captured the whole of the garrison and stores. General Prevost, who arrived from Florida shortly afterwards and took over command of the British troops in Georgia, advanced into South Carolina and, in May, 1779, threatened Charleston, but was compelled to retreat. In September D’Estaing’s fleet appeared before Savannah; on the 9th of October a combined French and American force attempted to re-take the town, but were beaten off with heavy loss: and in the spring of 1780 Clinton arrived with a large body of troops from New York to direct operations in the southern states. A year and a half had passed since he had brought off his army from Philadelphia, and little had been done. There had been fighting on the Hudson, the coasts of Virginia and the New England colonies had been harried, small towns had been sacked and burnt, and stores and ships destroyed, causing damage and distress to the Americans but also unwisely embittering the war. Now the English garrison at Rhode Island had been withdrawn and, while New York was still strongly held, the main efforts on the British side were directed to re-conquering the southern states, where Loyalist sympathies were strong and widely spread.

[Sidenote: Taking of Charleston.]

[Sidenote: Cornwallis.]

[Sidenote: The battle of Camden.]

[Sidenote: King’s Mountain.]